Book, Incomplete Dictionary of Happiness[LS]

Thomas Jefferson stated in the American Declaration of Independence that every individual has the inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. As this title that Perspectiva now publishes highlights, the truth, however, is that happiness has as many meanings as there are human beings who inhabit this planet, 'it is difficult to give it an objectively valid definition or concept', as Isaac highlights Epstein, in this 'Incomplete Dictionary of Happiness', for if 'everyone agrees to give the same name to what they think or feel, and yet may think or feel different things, then the common meaning of the word is nominal only'. One could almost say that the value of happiness is inestimable, if it weren't for the fact that leading economists and politicians increasingly believe that it is essential to estimate, ponder and research it. The search for the summum bonum, for the supreme good, has become scientific, its importance for individual and social development has entered the political agenda, public policies have it as a horizon, and the level of people's happiness has been contrasted with GDP in a to help understand, for example, why above a certain level economic growth no longer generates well-being or why there is social satisfaction or dissatisfaction in countries as diverse as the United States and Bhutan. Paraphrasing Cecília Meirelles, one could say that if happiness is still a word that the human dream feeds on, that there is no one who explains it and no one who does not understand, it has become something that, even in an incomplete form like today, is essential to study.